Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, June 27, 1994                   TAG: 9406270022
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: LESLIE TAYLOR STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

SOME GAVE, SOME RECEIVED; ALL APPLAUD EASTER SEALS' 50TH

Several years ago, she needed a wheelchair for her daughter Veronica, born with hypotonic cerebral palsy, craniofacial deformities and fluid on the brain.

Insurance wouldn't cover the $1,300 chair. But the Easter Seal Society of Virginia gave Wilson, of Roanoke, enough to pay a large portion of the chair's cost.

Sunday, Wilson sat at a windy Valleypointe Corporate Center site in Roanoke County to help the organization celebrate its 50th anniversary. Next to her was the wheelchair, empty.

"She doesn't need it anymore," said Wilson, motioning toward 3-year-old Veronica, who grasped the handles of a metal walker. "I felt it was only proper to give it back to them."

Since 1944, the Easter Seal Society of Virginia - headquartered in Roanoke - has provided services for children and adults with disabilities.

Its 50th-year celebration was billed as a family reunion picnic, reuniting clients with staff, donors with board members.

As the wind whipped dust and table umbrellas, invitees bopped to era-appropriate 1940s tunes, courtesy of the Kazim Shrine Temple Noblemen. Hot dogs, sodas and ice cream floats could be bought for less than a quarter.

It was fitting, said John Moticha Jr., chairman of the organization's board of directors, that the celebration be held at the site of its annual summer concert series - Valleypointe After Hours. Since it debuted five years ago, the series has boosted the organization's profile, as well as its coffers.

In the 1992-93 year, the latest figures available, the organization raised $2.4 million, a good portion from the concert series. Still, the organization's direct mail campaign is the backbone of its fund-raising activities, Moticha said.

"This is the only major charity where in excess of 90 percent of the funds raised directly help the people they are intended for," Moticha said.

The organization provides early-intervention services for children from birth through two years of age and their families. Those services include screenings; evaluations; home visits; family events; transition services; speech, physical and occupational therapies and purchase assistance for prescribed rehabilitative equipment for children up to 21 years of age.

The first year that Easter Seals were mailed statewide raised $69,000, enough to aid 200 children and a handful of adults with disabilities. The organization now provides services each year to 18,000 children and adults through regional offices in Falls Church, Richmond, Virginia Beach and Roanoke and its camps in Craig County and Richmond.

In Roanoke, 62 families receive services through the organization's Parent-Infant Education Program, said Jodi Leffue, an Easter Seal child development specialist.

At one time, the organization had wanted to limit the number of program participants to half that number.

"But we just couldn't put people on a waiting list," Leffue said. "We found a way to see them. We just couldn't say `No.' "

Easter Seal Society of Virginia headquarters is at 4841 Williamson Road, P.O. Box 5496, Roanoke 24012. The phone number is (703) 362-1656.